• About

Crossing Paths

~ Intersections can reroute our destinies forever

Crossing Paths

Category Archives: John F. Kennedy

11/22/63

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by michael schinker in John F. Kennedy

≈ 1 Comment

Seems as though most of my memories
of John F. Kennedy are archived in
grainy black and white.

The televised campaign debates with a
sweaty Dick Nixon, who looked like
a stiff cardboard prop in the shadow
of the bigger than LIFE magazine
war hero bred for achievement by
Massachusetts’ premier political family.JFK speech

The bright but bitterly cold inaugural
on the steps of the Capitol, frozen under
a nor’easter snowstorm’s fresh blanket
of dazzling white, a distinctive
backdrop for a fledgling president’s epic
“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not”
speech, challenging us in a valiant
call to arms against tyranny, poverty,
disease and even war itself.

The televised series of White House
tours graciously hosted by a sophisticated,
shyly soft-spoken Jackie who assured us
that it was just as much “our house.”

The candid photos of handsome toddler
John John playing hide-and-seek
under the desk of the most powerful
man on earth.

The who’s-going-to-flinch-first live TV broadcast
to an on-the-edge-of-our-seats audience by a
stern and deadly serious JFK demanding that a
raging Russian remove his nuclear missiles
from Cuba – or else. We held our national breath,
praying, all eyes fixed on the doomsday clock.

And then came that day in Dallas.
It started out with smiles and waves
– and color.

22 Nov 1963, Dallas, Texas, USA --- President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy smile at the crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Minutes later the President was assassinated as his car passed through Dealey Plaza. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Like heaven’s giant spotlight suspended
in a flawless azure big-as-Texas sky,
a beaming golden noontime sun illuminates
a cheering crowd at Love Field,
all reaching out for a once in a lifetime
touch from the chief executive’s hand.
The First Lady, wearing that now iconic
strawberry pink and navy trim
Chanel wool suit and matching hat,
cradles so tenderly an ill-fated bouquet
of red roses, too soon abandoned on a
blood spattered seat of the presidential
Lincoln Continental where the life of
Camelot’s king was lost and everything
suddenly faded back to black and white
again. For a very long time.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Crossing Paths on WordPress.com

Archives

  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (3)
  • December 2014 (6)
  • November 2014 (1)

Categories

  • 2017 (1)
  • 9/11 (1)
  • All Hallow's Eve (1)
  • Armageddon (1)
  • aspens (1)
  • Aylan (1)
  • Buddhist (2)
  • Celtic Christmas (1)
  • Charles Wesley (2)
  • Christmas (11)
  • Christmas Carol (3)
  • Christmas Day (4)
  • crucifixion (1)
  • December (5)
  • earthquake (1)
  • Easter (2)
  • Election 2016 (1)
  • Everest (1)
  • Flo and Kay Lyman (1)
  • Good Friday (1)
  • Happiness (3)
  • Holidays (2)
  • Holocaust (1)
  • Hurricane Harvey (1)
  • ISIS (1)
  • Israel (1)
  • Jesus Christ (15)
  • John F. Kennedy (1)
  • labels (1)
  • Life and death (9)
  • Mars (1)
  • Memorial Day (1)
  • Messiah (4)
  • miracles (1)
  • Nepal (1)
  • New Year's Eve (1)
  • Obsessions (3)
  • pandemic (1)
  • peonies (1)
  • perceptions (2)
  • poem (8)
  • politics (2)
  • Prophecy (4)
  • Refugees (1)
  • religion (6)
  • rescue (1)
  • resurrection (2)
  • Rocky Mountains (1)
  • savantism (1)
  • Smashing Pumpkins (1)
  • Solstice (1)
  • Spring (2)
  • stars (2)
  • Stonehenge (1)
  • suffering (1)
  • Summer (1)
  • Super Moon (1)
  • terrorism (2)
  • Titanic (1)
  • Tolstoy (1)
  • Ukraine (1)
  • Uncategorized (6)
  • vampires (1)
  • war (3)
  • winter (5)

Community

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 75 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Crossing Paths
    • Join 75 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Crossing Paths
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...